David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest: A Reader's Guide, 2nd Edition

David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest: A Reader's Guide, 2nd Edition by Burn, Stephen J.. paperback edition. ISBN: 9781441157072.

Infinite Jest has been hailed as one the great modern American novels and its author, David Foster Wallace, who committed suicide in 2008, as one of the most influential and innovative authors of the past 20 years. Don DeLillo called Infinite Jest a "three-stage rocket to the future," a work "equal to the huge, babbling spin-out sweep of contemporary life," while Time Magazine included Infinite Jest on its list of 100 Greatest Novels published between 1923-2006. David Foster Wallaces Infinite Jest: A Readers Guide was the first book to be published on the novel and is a key reference for those who wish to explore further. Infinite Jest has become an exemplar for difficulty in contemporary Fiction-its 1,079 pages full of verbal invention, oblique narration, and a scattered, nonlinear, chronology. In this comprehensively revised second edition, Burn maps Wallaces influence on contemporary American fiction, outlines Wallaces poetics, and provides a full-length study of the novel, drawing out the most important themes and ideas, before surveying Wallaces post-Infinite Jest output, including The Pale King.